Thursday Next

Oh dear. Clumsy, clumsy dialogue. But the combat looks fluid and I love the dress sphere system from X-2. Still excited for this one.

Maybe, but at least it wouldn't have cost you anything.

Wouldn't have happened if they'd had EA cracking the whip.

I read the book. Thought it was genre defining and was hugely excited to see it played out on screen. What I got was a 28 Days Later film that was mostly concerned with action set-pieces and some very good, deeper, talky bits. Edit: That said, it has some gaping plot holes, and I would have preferred a closer adaptation, with shambling zombies instead of fast ones, but setting aside the title, this is a good action-zombie film.

Yup, agreed. Didn't need the "World War Z" moniker. It felt more like a 28 Days Later film. I always preferred the book and original Dawn of the Dead film version of zombies. The idea that the Zombies are unstoppable the way a glacier is, rather than the tidal wave that they are depicted as these days is more appealing somehow. Largely I suppose because the former is more alien a concept.

Completed Mirror's Edge again, felt inspired by the announce of the Prequel / Sequel / Equel / Reboot / what have you.

@Dean most likely not solely defined by making profit. But if you distribute at cost and say that you are trying to get a message out and that this is how you are expressing yourself then you'd be in a pretty grey area. You'd need a test case to be sure. This applies less to games as in most of Europe they are under a voluntary system. In the UK PEGI is covered by the VRA, but even there games companies have a lot of wiggle room. For example, despite approaching parity (certainly with DS games) most mobile / tablet titles are not rated.

I love this place!

The move must have been in the offing for some time. You don't jump into a CEO job overnight. I reckon they just stepped up the timetable considerably so that they could parade a head on a spike.

I'm pretty sure distributing for cost would not be in the furtherance of business. Business is not being furthered. The wording "in the course or furtherance of business" comes from Tax law, and if you are non-profit then you are tax exempt. I'd say that there's a pretty good chance that it's a loophole you could jump through.

Good question. If you wanted to read it as harshly as possible, "furtherance of business" could even be extended to self promotion which would make distributing the stuff even for free prohibited (but I think that would go too far).

The biggest benefit (imho) is that all multiplayer games on Xbox One will have dedicated servers by default. This benefits players as there is no more Peer-to-Peer, so no host migration due to rage quitting etc. This also benefits devs as it won't cost them as much as Azure will ramp the number of virtual servers up and down on the fly based on the number of users. This means devs get charged for the number of people playing their game on the server at a given time, rather than paying for enough servers to accommodate your PSU, it also means that if a game goes from fairly popular to hugely popular overnight, they don't have to scramble to get more hardware in place for the new users. Actually running the client from the cloud though... Not sure on that. Caching, procedurally generating worlds, stuff like that. Fine. But handling all the client side stuff in a multiplayer game... I doubt it.

Called it!

None of this factors in the INFINITE POWER OF THE CLOUD™. Which will of course make up for all the shortfalls because... reasons.

No one is preventing anyone from distributing anything. Tom Six is just not allowed to sell it. If his "speech" carries an important message that the world needs to hear then he can give his film to anyone he likes. The VRA 1984 says "The supply of a video recording by any person is an exempted supply if it is neither (a) a supply for reward, nor (b)a supply in the course or furtherance of a business."

Ethan can confirm this for US, but in the UK not reading stuff is only excluded as a defence if you have had a chance to read it. For example, if you get the terms of sale on the back of a receipt after you have made a purchase, then, in the UK at least, those terms would be totally unenforceable. Similarly, if the terms are not accessible without having to go out and purchase (or already own) extra, unrelated equipment, like a PC, then they won't be enforceable.

Yes! That's the perfect solution! Only people with PC's and Laptops should have consumer rights. Unless of course, you plug in the console, turn it on and it goes *bang*, or doesn't even boot, before Sony are able to take possession of your faecal matter for any purposes legal or otherwise. Then you have to rely on the paper manual.

It's not about depicting drug use. It's specifically banning promoting drug use by giving it a positive effect with no detriment. For example, Snake is allowed to smoke in MGS, this can carry a positive effect making lasers visible, but it causes his health to drop. In the US, tobacco advertising is strictly regulated to the point of being almost impossible.

I would love it if their "super always connected box" lacked even the most rudimentary of internet connection technology.

Same principle, there's only one M25 (thank the gods), so it's "The M25". If you were to read the initial in full then it would sound odd "The motorway twenty five". Just down to preference I suppose.

Surely that's down to there being one I-95, so "The" I-95 while there are multiple "Broadway Drives", "Rosemary Avenues" and such? I assume you say "The USA" and "The UK".

I'd essentially be a dictator, but my ideas are great so everyone would be fine with it. Although, the first 6-12 months would be messy while undesirables were rounded up and... dealt with.

Appreciate that, and I'm not taking any of it personally. No country is perfect. I happen to like our way. I'm more than happy for us to have differing opinions on the subject.

Re: Manuals as Dean says, it's for warranty, eula, ToS, etc. If you don't have a PC, and you plug in your PS4 and it goes *bang* a USB stick is not going to help you. A paper manual will. Also, you have to be able to read the legal gubbins before activation for it to even have a chance of being enforceable.